Ren let Valeria's question settle in the heavy silence of the sealed office. What's the real plan? The title of 'strategist' felt like a lead weight in his gut. It was a role he had never asked for, a responsibility he had spent a lifetime avoiding. Strategies were for people with futures to plan, with assets to command. He was a survivor, his planning horizon measured in minutes, not sectors.
But her question was a transfer of power, an acknowledgment that her world of rules and protocols was dead. In the new world, governed by chaos and broken physics, his mind was the more valuable weapon. To refuse the role now would be to throw that weapon away.
He didn't answer immediately. Instead, he took one of the emergency ration packs, cracked the seal, and began to eat the dense, nutrient-rich paste. It was tasteless, but it was fuel. He needed to think, and his brain was running on empty.
After a few moments of methodical chewing, he looked at his two companions. "Before we make a plan, we need to know what we're working with. What are our options for going up?"
Silas, who was expertly field-stripping a pulse rifle he'd scavenged, spoke without looking up. "One real option. The cargo elevator in Sector 35. It's a straight shot to the lower Beta levels. A freight line that bypasses all this admin and residential garbage."
Valeria frowned. "Cargo elevators are restricted access. They're heavily fortified."
"Not this one," Silas countered, a cynical grin touching his lips. "No one uses it. The Gammas call it the 'Hollow Shaft.' People go down for salvage, but they don't come back up. It's been bad news since long before the Fracture. Full of ghost signals and… wrongness."
A haunted elevator. Of course. Ren filed the information away. A direct, high-risk path.
He looked at Valeria. "What's the official route?"
"The primary access causeways," she answered, her voice regaining a trace of its professional confidence. "Causeway Gamma-37 connects to Beta-12. It's designed to be a chokepoint, fortified with security checkpoints and automated defenses. In a containment scenario, it would be the first thing locked down."
"So, swarming with Janitors and paranoid Betas on the other side, assuming it's not already full of glitches," Silas finished for her, not bothering to hide his scorn for the 'official' route.
Two options: one haunted and unknown, the other a near-certain death trap.
Ren finished his ration pack and carefully sealed the wrapper. He looked at them both, his mind having already synthesized their opposing viewpoints into a third, better option.
"We don't take the causeway. And we don't jump blindly into the Hollow Shaft," he stated. His voice was quiet, but it commanded the room. "We go to Sector 34."
Silas and Valeria exchanged a confused look. "Why 34?" Silas asked.
"Because the old schematics show that Sector 34 contains the primary maintenance hub for this entire quadrant," Ren explained, his thoughts clicking into place. "That hub has a secure observation deck that overlooks the main control room for the Sector 35 cargo elevator. It was built for technicians to monitor the shaft's machinery."
He let the implication sink in. "We don't go to the elevator. We go above it. We use the hub as a defensible vantage point to watch the shaft. We figure out why it's called the Hollow Shaft. Is it an Aberration? A machine flaw? An environmental hazard? We gather intelligence, and then we decide if it's a viable path."
It was a technician's plan—cautious, analytical, and focused on understanding the system before trying to beat it. It wasn't about being the strongest or the fastest; it was about being the smartest.
A slow, appreciative grin spread across Silas's face. "Huh. A plan that doesn't involve getting shot at or eaten immediately. I could get used to this."
Valeria was silent for a longer moment, processing. The strategy was sound. It was an information-first approach, a proper military reconnaissance mission. It was a plan she understood and, despite herself, respected. "Agreed," she said, giving a firm nod. "The hub in 34 is our objective."
The alliance, fragile as it was, felt a little more solid. They had a goal. They had a leader.
As they began to portion out the supplies, Ren's eyes were drawn to a dusty monitor in the corner of the office. Unlike the others, its screen was not dark. It displayed a single, grainy, black-and-white security feed, apparently running on an independent power source. The image was of the deserted corridor just outside their door, the one they had recently passed through.
He was about to turn away when a flicker of movement caught his eye.
For a single frame, a small, shadowy figure darted from one side of the corridor to the other before vanishing into a darkened doorway. It was the same impossible flicker he had seen before.
"Just a data ghost," Silas muttered, noticing his stare. "This sector's full of them."
Valeria nodded in agreement. "Visual glitch. Ignore it."
But Ren knew it wasn't a glitch. Glitches didn't have a physical presence. Glitches didn't drop things. The memory of the brief, faint skittering sound he'd heard was sharp and clear in his mind.
He stared at the empty, silent corridor on the screen, a new, secret variable now factoring into his cold calculations. The plan was to go up. But there was something else here in the dark with them. And it was alive.